EA Opens Austin Studio Just For Pogo
Earlier this week I attended an EA event here in NYC - we'd seen some of the games before, although I got to spend some hands-on time with Mirror's Edge, which was packed at E3. Fun stuff.
But for all the hardcore awesomeness going on at the event, EA's casual titles took up just as much space - and attention, thanks mostly to my all-time favorite, EA's PR Queen of Casual, Miss Honey Hamilton.
EA's devotion to the Pogo brand (and to the continuation of its relationship to tabletop games king, Hasbro) is clear, and yesterday's announcement certainly seals the deal: EA will be opening a brand new Pogo-devoted studio in Austin, TX, and its first game will be Pictureka! Museum Mayhem, which I also had the chance to check out this week.
Pictureka! is a fun-looking hunt-and-seek game (not unlike the iPod's Everest, or the monochrome puzzles of a good old issue of Highlights) based on Hasbro's 2007 board game of the same name, and will be available on Pogo.com next month and in retail stores sometime this winter.
Pogo general manager Andrew Pedersen weighed in on the new studio and the Pogo brand:
"We are thrilled to open a studio in Austin as there is such an enthusiastic and knowledgeable game development community... It's great to be a part of that spirit, and I feel privileged to be working with a team full of game makers who bring such tremendous talent and experience to the Pogo team."
Make the jump for the press release.
EA OPENS NEW STUDIO IN AUSTIN, TEXAS FOR POGO.COM GAME DEVELOPMENT
PICTUREKA! MUSEUM MAYHEM First Retail Title in Development
Redwood City, Calif. - October 16, 2008 - Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) today announced the opening of a new studio, Pogo Austin, which features a dynamite tight-knit ensemble of passionate game developers who have come together to build exciting new games as part of the Pogo.com team. The Pogo Austin team will be joining EA's Bioware studio in Austin.
The new studio will focus on creating family-friendly titles based on Hasbro properties. The initial team of 12 features a strong foundation of Austin natives who boast more than 108 years of collective game experience and have shipped titles at companies such as LucasArts, Aspyr Media, Acclaim, Amaze Entertainment, Human Code, Origin Systems and Family Time Interactive.
The first title to be released from Pogo Austin is PICTUREKA! MUSEUM MAYHEM. This quirky seek and find game is based on the Hasbro game PICTUREKA! which debuted in 2007 and launched globally in 2008. In the digital version, a player becomes the new curator for a museum and investigates some odd things that are afoot. Someone has been breaking in and re-arranging the exhibits. The frantic director needs the player to restore items to their proper location and catch the person responsible. The game is set to launch online in November at Pogo.com for $19.95 (US) and £11.95 (UK); it will be available at retail in early winter.
"We are thrilled to open a studio in Austin as there is such an enthusiastic and knowledgeable game development community," said Andrew Pedersen, Pogo General Manager. "It's great to be a part of that spirit and I feel privileged to be working with a team full of game makers who bring such tremendous talent and experience to the Pogo team."
"PICTUREKA! MUSEUM MAYHEM has incredibly broad appeal. The game is fun for the entire family, whether you're six or 106. It brings everyone together and puts kids and adults on equal ground for laugh out-loud moments. We wanted to create an online PICTUREKA! experience that would be equally outrageous for players of all ages," said Sean Clark, Pogo Austin Studio Director. "Many members of the Austin team have families and it's exciting to be able to make a game that they can play and share with their children."
Pogo Austin is the newest addition to the Pogo studio family. There are also studio locations in Redwood City, CA and Shanghai, China. Pogo studios are actively recruiting for: Feature Engineers, Game Engineers and a QA Lead. For any inquiries please visit http://jobs.ea.com.
For more information and to experience some of the best online games on the Internet, visit www.pogo.com. For screenshots and assets, please visit press.ea.com.
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tiny dancer
Posted to Miscellany on 17 October 2008
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